"There 's got to be more to life than fighting for fishheads." Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Friday, June 6, 2014

Rs. 1 Black Money outside India = Rs. 6 NPA with Indian Banks

We are concerned about Rs.30000 crs black money outside India but what is our concern for six times of that amount lying as banking NPA?

When Govt wants to draft a law against the criminals they should involve some of the hardcore criminals. Who better than them know the mindset of criminals? But since we cant do that we involve Police because they deal with criminals therefore second best to know their mindset.

Similarly when RBI wants to deal with mammoth NPA problems they should not only involve branch managers who deals with borrowers but also should involve financial consultants engaged in fund syndication and advise entrepreneurs.

New RBI guidelines of asset classification before accounts becomes NPA is interesting but these kind of guideline make banking extremely procedural and only compliance centric. Branch people are finding it difficult to address customer service properly and on top of that so many compliance , reporting & auditing is paralyzing the banking operations.

Rather than spending time in data analysis of borrowers performance bankers remain busy with compliance and reporting. Asset classification etc is fine but RBI must change the way credit is being managed in the banks.

Some of the pointers for practice need to stop and new practice to start:

- Excess funding just because security is adequate should stop

- Non adherence of adequate promoters contribution must stop

- Auditors must be made accountable for fudged data certification

- Smart mechanism to be in place to get data filed with Income tax directly

- Relationship banking which is ignoring financial prudence

- Surprise check of accounting data and factory/office

- Credit monitoring independent of credit processing and branches

- Involving CAs in monitoring who can understand intricacies of accounting & implication of ratios.Branch people with their work pressure cant do proper monitoring.

- Making it strongly deterrent for CAs , Advocates and Valuers to certify wrongly

- Active monitoring mechanism even during pre SMA 0 level. Bankers need to engage talent who can play consultative role with borrowers who lack financial prudence.